To the Ends of the Earth: Pentecostalism and the Transformation of World Christianity. By Allan Heaton Anderson. Oxford University Press USA; 311 pages; £24.95 and £15.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

AS THEY mull over the details of his papacy—the gaffes, the cerebral pronouncements, the deepening scandals—some Vatican-watchers will struggle to position Pope Benedict XVI in the broad sweep of Catholic history. Does he mark the end of an era? The start of something new? Or was he just a place-holder?

George Weigel, a conservative American Catholic, suffers no such confusion. In his new book, “Evangelical Catholicism”, he sets out his clear views on where the church is going and where it needs to go. As an admirer of both Benedict and Pope John Paul II, his Polish predecessor, he argues that both pontiffs commendably ushered in a new phase of Catholic history: what he calls an “evangelical” period, in contrast to the “counter-Reformation” Catholicism that has held sway for most of the past 500 years.

The counter-Reformation phase, as he sees it, was defensive. It involved delving deep into the devotional and doctrinal resources of Catholicism to withstand the challenges of Protestantism, the scientific revolution and the onset of modernity. The new evangelical spirit, heralded by the last two popes, is more proactive, ready to offer an assertive critique of a secular and disenchanted world.

For Mr Weigel the word “evangelical” does not mean that the church must water down its doctrinal differences with Christians who are evangelical in the usual sense—ie, zealous, Bible-based Protestants who stress the need to be born again. But he argues that Catholics and evangelicals should make common cause against perceived foes like relativism and liberalism. Indeed, he has long worked to forge a tactical alliance between Catholics, low-church Protestants and other conservatives. He was a co-signatory of a 1994 document called “Evangelicals & Catholics Together”, which called for a joint struggle against abortion and euthanasia and in favour of the traditional family.

Moreover, the Catholicism that Mr Weigel wants would share many characteristics with evangelicalism in the usual sense: it would be exuberant, unapologetic and defiantly willing to fight rather than compromise on matters like sexuality and reproduction. Unusually for a Catholic, he suggests that this revitalised Catholicism should stress the need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Nobody could accuse Mr Weigel of pandering to conventional wisdom. For liberal Catholics and many observers, it seems obvious that the related problems of clerical-abuse scandals and a vanishing priesthood need to be addressed, at a bare minimum, by opening the sacerdotal caste to married men. But Mr Weigel dreams of something quite different: a reinvigorated celibate priesthood, and reinvigorated religious orders, in which men and women freely commit themselves to a life of abstinence and service to God as a riposte to the self-worship which, in his view, defines modern times. Mr Weigel is fair to insist that the modern cult of the self, made possible by material and physical security, is not history’s last word on human aspirations. He has grand hopes for a church that poses an honest and devout challenge to a sceptical world.

But all that seems a tall order when set against the grimly unfolding realities of contemporary Catholicism. In the latest twist in the American saga of abuse and evasion, the archdiocese of Los Angeles has just stripped a retired cardinal-archbishop of any remaining duties after releasing 12,000 pages of evidence which tell a distressing story of cover-ups. If any Catholics are gaining attention by proclaiming hard truths, it may be mavericks like David Berger, a gay German theologian, who insists that behind the homophobic smokescreen of Benedict’s Teutonic Catholicism lies a subculture of double standards and high camp.

Of course if Mr Weigel’s dream came true and many faithful men and women poured themselves into a life of altruism and chastity, that would indeed bolster the church. But could such a thing occur? It seems unlikely, but with religion odd things do happen—such as the Christian revival that began a century ago in a Los Angeles warehouse, when people suddenly began falling into one another’s arms and speaking in strange tongues. Such was the start of Pentecostalism, which swept through rich and poor countries alike in the 20th century, transcending barriers of sex and culture, and surviving schisms and frequent financial scandals.

That story is told with admirable clarity and detail by Allan Heaton Anderson, a British professor of religion and former Pentecostal minister, in “To the Ends of the Earth”. As he explains, the reach of the movement is not confined to the 300m or so people who belong to Pentecostal churches; it has influenced all Christian denominations, including Roman Catholicism, where charismatic communities—encouraging ecstatic experience—have thrived even in places like France where Christianity in general is declining.

But compared with the new phenomenon of Pentecostalism, the Catholic church carries enormous historical and institutional baggage. However hard it tries to morph into a counter-cultural gadfly, Catholicism will continue to be tainted by its image as an agency that enjoyed too much wealth and power for too long and abused both. That is not rich soil for revivals. Mr Weigel’s elegantly written manifesto will certainly galvanise conservative Catholics who are dreaming of a vision of how things should be under the next pope. But it will not convince more detached observers who are trying to work out how things are likely to be.